Hey Mercy community (and certain forum manager) I’m back.
I’m sure this thread will get locked in just a couple of hours since its "Taking a negative turn”. Also will probably get locked because this isn’t in the Mercy mega thread (which is locked YET AGAIN)
Sorry if there are any typos or badly shown text;grid whatever. I was doing this on notepad while waiting for my suspension to go ^^
TL;DR- This is a long one so as the title says I’m gonna be going over the nerfs that hit Mercy, I will say what I think is (still) causing problems and what I think should be changed.
Topics are going in order: (every topic is separated by a line)
I.Nerfs
II.Current Problems
III.Potential Changes (oh a pyramid)
I.Nerfs
Here we go. The most discussed topic regarding Mercy (or rather Nerfcy), the nerfs. (BTW, credit goes to Titanium (YES, THE MERCY CULT LEADER jk jk) for creating this list :P)
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Pistol damage in Valkyrie reduced from 30 to 20. (1)
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Mercy’s pistol no longer receives an increase in fire rate while in Valkyrie. (2)
- As all of you know the pistol was nerfed way back when the rework just came around the corner, it wasn’t even live yet. What I have to say on this is not much. The pistol’s power encouraged mostly aggressive (dmg-dealing aggressive) playstyle in Valkyrie which was not the main purpose of the former ultimate. (yes I’m implying that Valk won’t feel like an ult after the changes) Mercys were supposed to focus on healing/dmg boosting/resurrecting people while in Valkyrie as it enhanced all of these 3. Great changes.
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Valkyrie flight speed reduced from 11 meters/second to 9 meters/second. (3)
- This change was the very first change that came to the rework (sadly wasn’t the last). It is understandable why it went thru, as much as I loved being this super saiyan flying at supersonic speed it was near impossible dealing with Mercy in Valk. She was nearly unkillable. I think it was a needed change.
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Guardian Angel’s cooldown no longer resets upon Resurrect’s activation.(4)
- This one came in a package with nerfs 5, 6, 7 and 8. If resurrect was kept instant outside of Valk, this would make a big difference but since you had a cast time on res (which was longer than the GA cd by 0.25 sec) it was not such a big deal. Decent change, kinda reduced mobility in Valk (just a tad bit) but it was fine.
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Valkyrie no longer reduces Resurrect’s cooldown. (5)
- This one was a big hit. Decreasing the number of ressurected people in Valk from 4 for ~20 sec (~1res/5s) (res preValk, Valk, res, 10 sec, res again, valk ends, res again) to 2 for 20 sec (1res/10s) was straight up hit in the back. I know people didn’t want their picks in a fight be deleted immediately but this reduced the power of the ultimate in half. Still kinda acceptable, I would be annoyed too if my 4 picks over the course of a teamfight were ressed.
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Resurrect now has a 1.75 second cast time unless Valkyrie is active. (6)
- I didn’t like how it sounded on paper back then and I don’t like how it is now. Cast time has no place in a fast-paced FPS such as Overwatch unless it’s a really powerful ultimate ability (like Hanzo, Genji and such). Even more so when this cast time makes you the easiest target for DPS players (or even tanks/other supports like brig and zen tbh). What pisses me about this skill is that it makes you the most immobile object in the entire game and STOPS YOU FROM HEALING. It’s lethal for critical-hp allies to leave them without healing (especially in Valk, since AoE heals) for ~2 seconds to resurrect a target. Resurrect is crazy OP, but is one person really worth the loss of another one (or even more) because they didn’t get healing in the meanwhile? It really all depends. You could say that kinda raised Mercy’s skill level a bit, yet valkyrie in this version fixed that problem. 2 insta-resess + AoE heals. People get ressed, people get heals. Good enough, right?
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Mercy’s movement speed is reduced by 75% while casting Resurrect.(7)
- My opinion on this make-Mercy-a-Statue-so-its-easy-for-dps-to-kill-her change is kinda already “implemented” in my opinion for nerf №6.
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Resurrect can now be interrupted through CC, knockback, and death. If interrupted, Resurrect begins its cooldown. (8)
- Resurrect being on cast time, making Mercy immbile, stopping her healing and overall making her an easy target if the ally died nowhere near cover (Oh, ye, Hide’n’Rez is the only way to play Mercy now unless u wanna die. Hmmm, why did we change mass res again? “We didn’t like the playstyle of Mercy hiding for res.” HMMMMMM). So adding even more limitations to Mercy made this skill awful to play with. First things first, lets see how many things in the game can stop you from ressing:
- D’va’s Boop.
- Lucio’s Boop.
- Brigitte’s Boop and Stun.
- Orisa’s pull. (to be fair, doesn’t happen often, but happened to me once so I’m including it.)
- Reinhardt’s Charge, Booped by him charging someone else, Earthshatter (which seems to me to go thru everything for some reason…)
- Roadhog’s hook and ult.
- Winston’s ult.
- Hammond accidentally booping you away while spinning around the control point like a madman.
- Bastion. If you anywhere in his sight, u ded.
- Doomfist’s MS (ult, oneshot when centered), Rocket Punch and Rising Uppercut.
- Hanzo will easily snipe a stationary target unless he is bronze.
- Mccree’s flashbang, HighNOOOOON too.
- Mei primary fire is less likely to stop you but her ult freezes faster than your res, since she won’t ult to stop your res, don’t res in her Blizzard, please. She can still headshot you and snipe you across the map with the no-falloff dmg icicle.
- Pharah’s Boop.
- Pharah, Soldier, Reaper, Tracer, Widowmaker, BLOOODY hell, even Zen will most likely burst their dmg upon you when they see you casting res.
- Sombra’s hack and EMP.
- I mean Symm is kind of a threat but not really, since the second orb won’t be charged by the time your casting is done and you fly away, so list her out of this one.
- Ana can sleep stationary targets, right? (I’ve seen ana missing ressing Mercys ;-; )
- Sorry Torb mains, unless you get that close that you can shoot all your hot doritos at Mercy with your alt fire (in the head) you have no real counter to res…
- That’s around 25-30ish things in the game that can stop Resurrect. As I said Nerfs №5, 6, 7 and 8 came in altogether, so Valkyrie still being O P A F (you were basically unkillable for spamming GA, while providing heals and resurrections) and resurrect being a lot weaker outside of Valkyrie seemed like a decent change for me. I didn’t really like it, trust me, but it was playable and Mercy’s playstyle was still really dynamic in Valk, making you take quick decision on what you’ve gotta do. As I said, overall a decent change.
- Resurrect being on cast time, making Mercy immbile, stopping her healing and overall making her an easy target if the ally died nowhere near cover (Oh, ye, Hide’n’Rez is the only way to play Mercy now unless u wanna die. Hmmm, why did we change mass res again? “We didn’t like the playstyle of Mercy hiding for res.” HMMMMMM). So adding even more limitations to Mercy made this skill awful to play with. First things first, lets see how many things in the game can stop you from ressing:
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Mercy is no longer exempt from Resurrect’s cast time while Valkyrie is active. (9)
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Valkyrie no longer grants a charge of Resurrect upon activation. (10)
- These are the nerfs that killed the fun of Mercy. It is a game. A hero needs to feel fun to be played. (w/e tho appearently we aren’t allowed to have fun, hah). As people saw before the Jan30.2018 patch Mercy’s Valk was used mainly for the resurrects. Now that they are gone (even more so, valkyrie not empowering them makes resurrect feel clumsy). Here is the point that Valkyrie became a problem. It is a fast charging ultimate that provides chinese version-type of Healing/DmgBoosting (what I mean is it’s cheap zen/orisa ult). It required no timing whatsoever. You used your ult earlier? Eh whatever you have 15 more sec, than you will build easily as your tanks will most likely be damaged. Activated your ult too late? Eh, you can go battle Mercy and get some picks (tip: widows, anas and hanzos are easy targets when they are scoping in. Don’t move in a str8 line tho). What’s more is since you didn’t have resurrect(s) being instant anymore the playstyle of Mercy changed from dynamic healer who can res 1-2 targets to a sluggish SpectatorCamera-like AoE healer. Which isn’t the strongest thing yet here comes a problem I previously mentioned. Resurrecting an ally in Valk potentially leaves your team without 420 healing(ye thats the math lul). It’s not a lot but wouldn’t a dove Zen want healing. Or low health Rein? Resurrect didn’t feel worth in Valkyrie as it stopped you from doing the only thing Valkyrie was now able to do: healing. You’d be better off resurrecting before Valk, Valk, Heal a bunch and that’s it. Playing Mercy from this patch on made playing her feel like a chore. Like something you have to do but you don’t want to. Mercy’s playrate really dropped. Unless I played Mercy people in my rank would usually pick moira instead of her because of Moira’s dynamic playstyle and the pure power of her healing. I really hoped that they’d revert mercy after 1-2 months of this change. But they didn’t (oh I mean cuz they probably don’t read the really articulated and detailed thread likes Titanium’s and Macster’s, hell even EeveeA gave balance idea’s for Valkyrie (which is bad design in my opinion as a skill overall) since she appearently noticed that some of the devs hodl the Valk idea like their baby and they are not letting it go. Yet they just lock all of the threads and/or throw them in the Mercy MegaTrashDum- I mean Thread. (unless it’s smth like “Mercy in Bikini skin”) Thousands and thousands of feedback has been ignored to purely stay with Valkyrie. This ultimate is not healthy for the game, even less for Mercy. It just sucked the fun out of her (while still leaving resurrect being strong) as we can see from the past 7 months (30jan - 27jul).
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Valkyrie’s GA movement speed bonus reduced by 50%. (11)
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Valkyrie’s duration reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds. (12)
- These 2 changes were fine, it decreased the survivability of Mercy while in Valk (which was crazy lot) and decreased the amount of healing she can provide to the team in Valk by decreasing it’s duration. Not a change I like, but probably a change that was needed for Valkyrie to be healhier for the game. If it was just these 2 nerfs + the 50 hp/s nerf, I don’t thing nerfs 9 and 10 would’ve been implemented. Just my opinion tho.
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Mercy’s primary beam healing output reduced from 60 hp/sec to 50 hp/sec. (13)
- This won’t change a thing. If anything else it’s another nerf to Valkyrie, even tho it’s underwhelming as it is. Valk still requires the same points to get, yet nerfing Mercy’s healing means she will get it slower. AND Valk healing will be completely negated (even outdmg-ed) by a winston in the middle of your team firing his tesla cannon (just a question why are people talking that Symm2.0 Junk and Mercy are “no aim no brain” when winston is literally with rate1 symm fire, more mobility, tankyness AND A BUBBLE SHIELD. I don’t get it (also winston tilts me f u c c this hero)). So now that every DPS/Tank (even supports) can outdmg Valkyrie’s Healing what is there left to do in Valk. DMG boost, or pistol (I mean u could still heal but it won’t be that effective). Mercy’s dmg is fine, but DPS would perform better, and being there for an orisa ult, u could just pick orisa. I think that really didn’t fix any of the known issues for Mercy but rather slapper her in the face. I think it was a really unnecessary change.
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Mercy can no longer damage boost “Dragon Strike”, “Self Destruct”, “Steel Trap”, “RIP Tire” + “Venomous mine” (That includes Hammond’s ultimate) (14)
- Is it just me or bliz tried to cover this nerf up by calling it a “bug fix”. I doubt that blizz, the company that is proud with their game design and stuff is not able to fix a bug thats almost 3 years old. Ever since beta Mercy could power up dragonstrike and self destruct. Why are you nerfing it now. WHY. Dmg boost and the pistol would be the only reliable things left in her basics. Yet you nerf dmg boost to the limit of it being able to power up just certain abilities (you didn’t even give us a list of which can be powered up)… Another unnecessary change which I think should be reverted (tho I’m kinda happy this will be the end of spamzo-zarya meta)
Overall: I think most of the changes made to Mercy were justified by the fact that resurrect is a strong ability on CD. Even tho this is how it is I think the latest few changes weren’t necessary and Mercy could be balanced without recieving them.
II.Current Problems
Currently Mercy has 2 main problems. Valkyrie and Resurrect.
Valkyrie
- This ultimate, no matter how I look at it, doesn’t feel or play like an ultimate. With the incoming PTR nerf this “ultimate” will be the most underwhelming ability in the entire game. It’s healing potential has been lowered to 3750 hp from 4500 hp. That’s a huge amount. What’s more is that since you can’t power up most ults now you will get Valkyrie harder by using the dmg boost, which makes healing nonstop feel comfortable. And that’s where the problem is. Blizzard nerfed her healing because she was outperforming other healers on healing. But other healers provide far MORE utility or/and DMG. Mercy’s only contribution to dmg can be dmg boost (please, taking out the pistol in comp will get your DPS players mad.) Now that it’s nerfed, alongside the healing nerf, they make Valkyrie seem like nothing but an escape ability. Her healing will be outperformed by a Winston. He can literally zap the whole team and DO DMG THRU THE HEALING. He will nulify healing pumped out by Mercy. What other ultimates are completely countered by a NO-AIM basic attacks. (hint: none, exception may be Hammond’s ult, dunno). What I mean is. Valkyrie will be the most underwhelming ultimate to use. It won’t help your team as much as Coalescence/Transcendance/Sound Barrier (hell, maybe even Photo Barrier will be better as it can actually Block dmg).
Resurrect
- This ability, as much as I love it, is O P A F. All it takes to have resurrect is 30 seconds. Doesn’t matter if you are 340 SR or 4890 SR, you will have Resurrect every 30 seconds. Ofc it will be harder to res at GM/T500 as people there aren’t actually potatoes. What I mean is, that Resurrect as unearned ability on COOLDOWN is not balance-able. We can see that since that ability got hit by 6 back-to-back nerfs. And as far as I know blizz is currently discussing a new change on Res. The problem with the ability is that it’s unearned, no matter how good you are you will have it every 30 seconds and as long as you can HIDE (AHAM.) you can pull the res off. It rewards sneaky plays as well as erasing mistakes only for them to be repeated. It’s crazily OP ever after all these nerfs and it’s just funny how the devs didn’t take any of the suggestions that were given in the Megathread and just continued nerfing it. Ye… Seems about right.
III.Potential Changes
What I think would work out for Mercy:
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Ultimate Ability - Ressurect
- Now has LoS check (Resses targets that were in LoS in the initial cast, not when the cast time ends)
- Cast time - 1.5 s
- Range increased to 15m from 5m
- During cast time res can be interrupted by CC, hack or death.
- While casting Mercy is FREE to use Guardian Angel
- Healing requirement increased from ~1750 to ~2100
- Every target that was in Res’ range in any point of the cast gets ressed at the end of cast
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SHIFT Ability - Guardian Angel
- Remains the same, save the bunny hop please.
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E Ability - (Credit goes to Brawl for the initial idea of the ability, check his post)
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A projectile wave attack that pacifies the target, reducing DMG dealt from it by 30%.
* Insta cast, Mercy stop healing/DMG boosting her target when casted.
* Effect of the ability will be applied 0.75s after hitting the target (If someone plays League, kinda like Zoe’s Sleepy Trouble Bubble)
* Effect is applied for 5 seconds
* Cooldown of 15 seconds
* Can be removed by Zarya’s Bubble or Eaten by DM- Stacks in Mystery Heroes/No limits
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Caduceus Staff
- Healing per second increased from 50 hp/s to 60hp/s
- DMG boost CANNOT boost abilities like Junkrat Tire/trap, Widow E (Mine), Hanzo Dragons, Dva Nuke
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Caduceus Blaster
- Remains the same
While these are not the perfect changes I think that they should be able to get Mercy in a good spot, while still keeping her balanced AND fun. The new ability will open up tons of ways to play her, while still having the most requested feature (Mass Res) in her kit.
Thanks for reading ^^